I’ve been sending my boggled mind through countless runs on the planet of Carcosa in Housemarque’s latest game, Saros, for the entirety of the past long weekend, and while I’m still trying to wrap my head around exactly what’s going on out there, I have gathered enough intel to determine what weapons I think are the best for newcomers to the story.
In a nutshell, Saros is a rougelite bullet hell, or bullet ballet as Housemarque likes to call it, which means you’ll be slaying countless enemies while simultaneously dodging the enormous amount of things they throw at you, more than likely dying, and then trying again.
And again.
Aside from power weapons and melee hits, your gun is your main source of damage in the game. There are five different weapons in total, each coming in one of three variations, and then further packing a random selection of perks.
As the perks are random, I’ll just be discussing the 15 overarching weapon types and singling out the guns that work best for me. Of course, things will change depending on your own gameplay style and the random perks you find, so play around with them all until you find a comfortable loadout.
The Weapons:
| Rifle | Handcannon | Shotgun | Crossbow | Chakram |
| Tactical Rifle | Ricochet Handcannon | Horde Shotgun | Impactor Crossbow | Reaping Chakram |
| Smart Rifle | Marksman Handcannon | Annihilator Shotgun | Bifurcator Crossbow | Myriad Chakram |
| Onslaught Rifle | Eruptor Handcannon | Stalwart Shotgun | Repeater Crossbow | Ripsaw Chakram |
The Basics:
The Rifle category is pretty much your standard spray-and-pray weapon, with a few changes between variations. The Tactical Rifle is simple and straightforward, with a chainsaw-like alternating fire and auto-aim enabled. The Smart Rifle has very aggressive auto-aim and a homing-bullet alternate fire, all at the cost of damage per round. The Onslaught Rifle switches things up by ditching auto-aim entirely for heaps more damage.
The Handcannons function best in the mid to close range zones of your enemy. They pack a small amount of ammo in each clip, but certainly hit quite hard. The Ricochet Handcannon functions as its name states, with bullets bouncing off terrain, while its alternating fire switches to full Clint-Eastwood-fire-as-fast-as-you-can mode. The Marksman and Eruptor Handcannon are both three-round burst pistols. The Marksmans’ alt-fire is a single-shot marker that enables auto-aim, while the Eruptor loads all remaining shots into one shot and fires them all.
A shotgun is a shotgun, and in Saros, they are much the same. Short-range, burst weapons that excel when you’re face-to-face with your enemy. The Horde Shotgun fires a semi-close-range horizontal spread, while its alt-fire turns that spread vertically. The Stalwart works better at closer ranges than the Horde, but loses efficacy with distance quite quickly. It’s alternating fire pauses a wall of pellets mid-air that you can then redirect with a second shot. These pellets work a little better at longer distances, too. The Annihilator fires a more circular shot, which works great for concentrated fire, and its longer range alternating fire is a grenade launcher for bigger groups at a distance.
The crossbows work great at long range, but they have a much slower rate of fire, which requires a bit more patience. The Repeater Crossbow requires you to hold down the fire button, which then releases a couple of bolts at your enemy once charged. Its alt-fire fires a single shot that spreads on impact. The Bifurcator works similarly, with a charge to fire, and a single bolt that splits alternating fire, however you can release the trigger to fire the bolts at your own discretion. The Impactor is a single-shot beast, where you need to make sure each shot counts. It’s alt-fire also fires a single shot, but if you miss, well, you’d better hope you can dodge better than you can aim.
The Chakrams are an interesting set of weapons. I can see these working for players with a bit more skill than I have, but they do require a bit of getting used to. Each of them fires a number of discs out, which are then called back to you via the alternate fire option. The Reaping Chakram fires a single disc, and when it returns creates a spinning circle around you, which grows bigger the more you use it. The Myriad Chakram fires multiple discs that can be activated via the alt-fire, but only return to you if you get close enough to them. The Ripsaw Chakram inserts itself into your enemies and spins back through your enemies as you call them back.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the weapons that actually work.
The Goat:
The Smart Rifle is a weapon I always miss when I think about trying out one of the others. It’s a fully automatic rifle with homing bullets that can be fired in the general direction of anything, and the shots will hit. This allows me to focus more on dodging enemies and their projectiles and moving across the map as best as possible. I can just hold down shoot and run for my dear life. The downside here is I don’t get any weakspot priority, but that’s a downside I’m willing to take.
The Silver Medal Stallion:
If I can’t find a Smart Rifle in play, you’ll more than likely see me dodge-shooting my way through Carcose with the Eruptor Handcannon. The gun still packs autohit, so I don’t need to worry too much about aiming, but it deals a lot more damage per bullet than the rifle, meaning I churn through enemies a lot faster. I just can’t curve bullets around walls like I’m Angelina Jolie as I can with the Smart Rifle, and that’s why it’s second. I also find the alternating fire mode too aggressive, and recovering from the recoil is not worth the damage.
Flipping the Fun Mode Switch:
If I’m looking to spice things up a little, I’ll pick up the Horde Shotgun. Overall, I find it the most versatile shotgun, giving me different spread patterns for different enemies, but the shotgun class itself shines if you enjoy a bit of up-close action. With a shotgun equipped, I’m dashing towards enemies, blasting them in whatever looks like their face and then finishing them off with a massive PK before dashing out again. It’s a lot more challenging than staying safe behind corners, but man, is it fun.
Because this is a roguelite, though, each run will throw a different batch of RNG at you, so don’t feel too bad when you don’t manage to find the exact weapon you want. Instead, embrace the chaos, embrace the eclipse. Put any weapon you can find into your sweaty palms and blast your way through Carcosa like it’s just another day at the range.
It’s not like you’re going to die forever anyway.
Right?
